12 Celebrated Designs Influenced by Steve Jobs

Atari Breakout

The first Jobs and Steve Wozniak collaboration that netted them income was not the Apple I, but the Atari arcade game Breakout, the predecessor of BlackBerry’s smash hit Brick Breaker. In 1975, Atari employee Jobs was assigned to build a prototype and paid $750, with a bonus of $100 for each chip eliminated from the design. Jobs enlisted his friend, Hewlett-Packard employee Wozniak, to help him finish it in four days. Sleepless for the next four days, Woz succeeded in eliminating 50 chips from Jobs’ prototype. Atari said the design was difficult to manufacture and ended up designing its own version. All was not lost, though. Wozniak incorporated some of his Breakout work into one of the earliest creations of the company he started with his old friend. Color, sound, and game paddles made their way into the Apple II because of Breakout.